On the weather

Last night was the third night in 14 that I have spent without power in my area after the third serious band of thunderstorms roared through the area. The weather that folks in the Mid-Atlantic suffered through this summer has included tornados, fist-sized hail, lightning strikes, and high wind (which damaged tents on the mall as seen above).

There are many reasons that living in the DC metro area is difficult:

Staggeringly-high real estate prices

The second-worst traffic in America

Mass-transit that is fast becoming as expensive as driving

Relatively mild winters that send locals into states of existential panic

Brutal summers featuring loads of humidity and pollution

But the one thing that we could take some comfort in was that we did not have the kind of risk of natural disaster that many other places have. We rarely have serious flooding. Hurricanes never get this far inland. Earthquakes are entirely unheard of. Tornado touchdowns used to be a once-in-a-decade thing. Now, in the past five years, we’ve had two touch down in Southern Maryland and this most recent one that caused damage in Falls Church (the town where I live).

If this kind of consistent catastrophic weather becomes the norm, it will have removed one of the few pluses to living in this area. DC summer weather is supposed to be very simple. The heat and humidity builds up and then in the afternoon once or twice a week, the clouds open for an hour, there are a few claps of thunder, no wind… and the hours after the rain are the most pleasant of the week. No longer, now there’s wind, tornados, and extended power outages.

Oh, and if anyone sees me today and I am looking a bit more scraggly than usual, you can blame that on having to shave in the dark this morning.